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Some of the graves from Sunday's "funeral".

“The last rest
of the refugees has to be our political unrest”.

This week, the
German group of activists and artists, the Centre for Political Beauty, announced that they would exhume the bodies of refugees who died in the Mediterranean Sea and then bury them in Berlin. With a crowdfunding campaign, which received considerable publicity and raised 47,000 € within three days,
the self-made morticians collected enough money to finance this action.

By doing this,
the Centre for Political Beauty (in Germany well-known as 'Zentrum für
Politische Schönheit' (ZPS)) tries to bring attention to the fact that approximately 3,000 refugees have died in the Mediterranean sea this year.
They are also highlighting that the victims can often not be identified and are
stored in morgues for months, before being buried anonymously.

“The dead
are coming”

By exhuming
some of them, the Centre for Political Beauty tries to raise awareness – not
only about the graves, but the refugee crises in general. Approximatively
55,000 refugees have arrived in Italy this year – with Italians calling for increased support from the European
Union. Also there were attempts to renegotiate the Dublin-II treaty, which
determines that every refugee shall seek asylum in the country where they first arrive. But a quota which is supposed to distribute refugees
equally over Europe, is criticised by many countries harshly – especially the
UK.

Nevertheless,
campaigns like this one show that there is quite a large group of people who
are actively fighting for better conditions for people arriving in Europe.

The young
but strong root of the German refugee movement

One major surge
of this movement occurred in 2012, when the Iranian asylum seeker Mohammad
Rahsepar committed suicide in a depressing refugee dorm in Würzburg, a small city in Bavaria. It was certainly not the first death of a refugee under
government custody. But this time there was a open letter by refugees in
Würzburg, which received wide public attention. In that letter they were
expressing their experiences that “in this highly developed country, the heart
of Europe, which expresses its outrage every day about the human rights
violations in other countries, we feel ourselves confronted with absolutely
inhuman treatment.”

But building a
lobby of refugees was difficult, the refugee dorms (which are called 'camps' belying the negative historical connotations) were spread out over
Germany, in the outskirts of cities. Nevertheless, the refugees and supporters
began to organise hunger strikes in the camps and initiated a 'refugee march', having
Berlin as the destination. The march was rather more of an information campaign, trying to
inform the public and build support - it took over a year to arrive in Berlin.

The long
struggle – unusual resistance

In Berlin, the
refugees and supporters occupied Oranienplatz and pitched tents there.
Additionally, several unoccupied houses, an abandoned school, a trade union
office and even, albeit briefly, the famous Berlin TV tower were occupied.
During demonstrations and occupations there were severe clashes between the
protesters and refugees on one side, and police and local politicians on the
other. After a year of protests, negotiations and compromises, the protesters were disappointed about the harsh line by the police, the Green Party (which was acting quite restrained) and broken deals. Some deals, for example
conducting a benevolent process in the asylum application of the school
occupiers, were not executed as promised.

There are also
rumours that some refugees feel instrumentalised by white, academic leftists,
who are supporting them. Indeed, there is a strong tendency of many students to
be engaged in the refugee struggle instead of against general inequality
concerns. This has raised the question of who should speak for the refugees -
which is obviously not even a homogeneous group. Additionally, the refugees
which occupied the Oranianplatz had internal differences with regards to their demands.

Conflicts
are heating up

Despite
internal discussions, the refugee movement stands united, since external
threats are rising. There is the Desden-based Pegida campaign against the
alleged 'Islamisation' of Saxony – a state where only 4000 muslims live.
Although less and less people are mobilised, the resentments stay. Local
elections resulted in around 10% of the votes going to a Pegida candidate.
There is also the right-wing party 'Alternative for Germany' (AfD), which is
increasingly winning seats while moving right.

Increasing
grudges against refugees can also be noticed in crime statistics. The number of
attacks on refugee homes increased six-fold from 2012 to 2014, to 150 attacks.
Additionally, there are countless crimes on 'foreign looking' people. Just in
the last months, several headline-grabbing scandals emerged, when, for example,
a future building for refugees was burned down in Tröglitz, Saxony Anhalt, or
security guards from a private firm were found to be abusing refugees in a migrant shelter.

Critics of
the action by the Centre for Political Beauty

Although the
need for action against xenophobia, resentment and for solidarity with people
coming to Europe is clear to many people, there were noticeable critics with
regard to the action by the Centre for Political Beauty. On social media, some
said the action was disrespectful to the dead, while abusing the corpses for
performance art and political campaigning.

However, the Centre for Political Beauty underlines that the exhumination, transport and funeral is
done in a sensible way. The 'inhumane' graves were opened together with the
victims' relatives, who decide what will happen to the bodies once they arrive
to Germany. The funeral of the first persons were undertaken on 16 June - also with religious support.

The group of
activists can already view their provocative campaign as a success. Besides
successfully collecting money for the action and raising awareness, thousands
of people are supposed to be mobilized for the final funeral procession in front of
the Kanzleramt, chancellor Angela Merkel's doorstep.

In 2014, they
also removed crosses commemorating people who died at the Berlin wall, to bring
these to the new wall around Europe (which turned out to be copies). It seems
as though not only is the refugee movement gaining momentum, but that the age
of unusual and provocative action is about to come (back).

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